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Talk:Richard III (Play)
Oh, yes, I'd forgotten it was in RB. Seems odd that he would write this, and apparently quite closely to the way he wrote it OTL, when the Tudors were out and the Hapsburgs presumably had no reason to care how Richmond was remembered. When first I read Richard III I was struck by how closely it resembled Macbeth. This becomes even more remarkable when one remembers that the two plays both represented adventures in monarchical ass-kissing. Furthermore, both Richmond and Macduff come off as dull, boring little bitches in comparison to Richard and Macbeth. Both are villains, indisputably, but they're among the most compelling villains this side of Darth Vader (or chronologically speaking, the other side of Darth Vader) and it's very easy to be disappointed that they could be beaten by the likes of Richmond and Macduff. Turtle Fan 22:47, 23 March 2009 (UTC) :Actually, that's another point of commonality-both are really beaten by their own overreaching ambition and villainy. The putative heroes are just there to take advantage them at their lowest moment. TR 01:32, 24 March 2009 (UTC) ::I always thought the "Yay Henry VII!" elements of Richard III were pretty back-handed. Actually I've tracked down a fair amount of anti-Tudor sentiment in Shakespeare, subject to my own interpretation: The depravity of a king who would marry his brother's widow in Hamlet, the weakness of the old monarch in Richard II (Apparently the Master of Revels gave him fits over that one, and Devereaux's rebellion was said to be inspired by it), the reverence for Thomas More in Henry VIII, the unimpressive cut Richmond makes in Richard III, the alleged coded mourning for the lost Catholic theologians in Sonnet 23. I wanted to write a paper about it in college but after going over my plans with my prof he said I was crawling out on too many limbs. ::As for Richard and Macbeth being done in by ambition--Macbeth, obviously, but while Richard clearly followed a parallel course, I incline to the position that bitterness was what ruined him. Something of a Nixon, I guess. ::Certainly I found him extremely sympathetic. He was treated terribly unfairly, kept around because he was useful when all hell was breaking loose but kicked to the curb the minute the good times came back. His opening monologue leaves one saying "You poor, poor thing--You cannot prove a lover, to entertain these fair, well-spoken days!" And from there it's a reasonable jump to "Yes, you have the right to prove a villain, and hate the idle pleasures of these days!" ::By contrast, "Why bastard? Wherefore base? When my dimensions are as well compact, My mind as generous, and my shape as true, As honest madam's issue?" had me feeling a little bad for Edmund, but not to anywhere close to the point of believing his nastiness was okay. ::Ah, bardolatry. A pastime I don't engage in often enough. Turtle Fan 02:08, 24 March 2009 (UTC) :::I do think the argument that Richard III is completely pro-Tudor propaganda is missing most of the mark, for many of the reasons you cited. Richmond is pretty inconsequential (it's been a while since I've seen the Olivier version, but I don't think any of Richmond's lines actually made it into the McKellen version). Moreover, EVERYONE in Shakespeare's day thought Richard was evil. Thomas More was probably Shakespeare's source, and More was hardly a Tudor-approved source by Shakespeare's day. ::::A solid century of the official party line being that this guy was the worst ever, and at a time when the only mass medium (if it could be called that) was heavily censored and closely controlled by the government, will hurt Richard's reputation. More's attack on Richard, however, was written at a time when he was still loyal to the King above all others save God (Actually he was loyal to the King above all others save God till the very end, but at the point when he took a crack at the Yorkist he was still able to see his loyalty to the king as an appropriate second-tier loyalty rather than something that keeps ramming against the one loyalty which trumps it and forcing him to repudiate it.) I believe that work was politically correct. Turtle Fan 21:19, 24 March 2009 (UTC) :::I think that Shakespeare had two primary purposes. The more mundane point was getting a conclusion to his history the War of the Roses that began with the Henry VI cycle. Second, and more interestingly, I think Richard III represents a still fairly young writer trying to create a work about evil and the nature of evil, and what constitutes an evil person. And he combined both of these purposes in the one play. Obviously Tudor wins in the play because he did in history, and evil tends to be punished in Shakespeare's work. TR 15:28, 24 March 2009 (UTC) ::OMG, Richard III is TOTALLY Nixon. Nicely done. I still have deep, abiding love for Edmund. I'm a freak. Elefuntboy 04:14, 24 March 2009 (UTC) :::You love Edmund? But he was so nasty. He was just mean and sadistic and cruel. I know not why bastard, but I could definitely tell him wherefore base. Turtle Fan 21:19, 24 March 2009 (UTC)